Masks let us be someone or something totally different from who we usually are.

Under the right circumstances, playing with fire is a delight—imagine being gathered round a firepit as the crackling flames invite us to sing, dance, and roast a marshmallow or two. Our chalice also invites us to play, although with ideas rather than with marshmallows. The flame encourages us to...

May I always remember that Tango, like life, is a dance of the people. It’s meant to be shared, not practiced in isolation.

Rain falls upon the surface of the earth, and pulled by gravity each drop begins to flow downhill. Drop merges with drop, flowing together, into a trickle, a streamlet, a creek, a mighty river, flowing onward. Some of the water seeps down into the earth itself, as groundwater, or deep aquifers,...

We can’t always predict which choices will wind up having a huge impact on us, whether it's bringing home a stuffed animal or taking a particular train to Oxford Circus.

It's an impulse of the human self to be known fully, and that’s almost never possible unless we risk the conversations that help us see past our initial impressions.

In real life, we can only place the pieces, one by one, and see what kind of picture we create. Sometimes we turn out to have chosen the wrong piece. Sometimes the picture is wildly unexpected.

The most important lesson pottery has taught me is to not be attached to the final product—the process matters more than the product.

May whatever gatherings or activities we engage in this Sunday afternoon help restore us — our connections to one another; our sense of hope, beauty, and fun in this world; our deep knowing that we have to take care of ourselves and each other with love and joy if we are to soulfully survive the...

To prepare, you'll need a few inflated balloons -- and to gird yourself for the improvisation required! Let’s play a game! Everyone knows how to play this game. All you have to do is get this balloon to the back of the room as fast as you can! Go!...

No matter who—or what—you are, you are welcome here. Let’s be clear: Here, we welcome goblins and ghouls, saints and sinners, angels and devils, zombies and werewolves, vampires and witches. We welcome princesses and princes, paupers and farmhands, aliens and astronauts, robots and cyborgs,...

One of the potential spiritual lessons of sports comes in its ability to connect people—to each other as well as to a team of strangers. Not too long ago, I was in a workshop in which we were discussing “peak experiences,” those mystical, transcendent experiences of what Abraham Maslow would...

December sixth, The Modern Look and Lore of Santa Claus (1863). Universalist Thomas Nast produced over seventy illustrations of Santa. It is from Nast that the world first learned of Santa's red suit, that he gives coal if you're naughty, and even that Santa, as a world citizen, belonging to no...

Mindful that With great power comes great responsibility, We light this chalice in the hopes that In brightest day, in blackest night, Our faith will Flame on! —Spiderman, Green Lantern, & the Human Torch (compiled by Cynthia Landrum)...

Among Star Wars afficianados, May 4th is recognized as a special day. This "May the Fourth" invocation was written by Tori Jameson with help from Earl Rogers, Kevin Mann, and Cyn Burnelle. Please use it in worship as responsibly as a Jedi uses a lightsaber. Leader: May the force be with you!

Once there was and once there was not a town on the edge of the swamp in the sultry summer weather of far south Florida, between the alligators and the ocean. In this town there were two amazing friends, Sam and Joseph. They were a lot alike. They liked the same foods. They liked the same books.